Payback: Trump Team Eyeing Massive Deportation Prisons in Dems' Own Backyards
Illegal immigrants facing deportation in the Trump administration may not have to travel far from the sanctuary cities that have protected them.
A report from NBC, based on sources it did not name, said that the plan under discussion – which means it is not yet in its final form – would double the existing 41,000 detention beds that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is currently allotted by Congress.
Conceptually, illegal immigrants would be held in these facilities for a short time and then flow out of the country.
Because of the size of the illegal immigrant populations in sanctuary cities, detention facilities are likely to be placed near them, NBC reported, with its sources saying numbers will determine where detention centers are located, not whether a city has Democratic leadership.
However, the report said sanctuary city status will not stop the incoming administration from creating a detention center in or near such a community.
Areas the report singled out as likely places for new centers to be opened include Denver, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, while expanding or reopening facilities to serve as detention centers might be an option for New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, one of NBC’s sources said.
Building is one option, along with looking for space in existing facilities, such as county jails.
Karoline Leavitt, a representative of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, did not address the detention center concept specifically in a statement to NBC.
“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver,” she said.
Stephen Miller, who Trump has tapped to be his deputy chief of staff to lead domestic policy, has said that the Trump administration could call out National Guard troops to assist in deportations, according to Reuters.
Trump has indicated that a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act could be used to deport alleged gang members in the country illegally.
Miller told The New York Times that Trump will not back down on his plan for deportations.
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” he said, adding, “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”
“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs,” he said. “Americans will also celebrate the fact that our nation’s laws are now being applied equally, and that one select group is no longer magically exempt.”
“Bottom line,” he said, “President Trump will do whatever it takes.”
Detention centers are likely to be run by private contractors, as noted by ABC.
In an earnings call held Thursday, GEO Group Executive Chairman George Zoley said his company “was built for this unique moment in our history and the opportunities that it will bring.”
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